Consistency for Cowards

Greetings B-1 Subscribers. I know many of you follow the path of individual excellence, and lots of subscribers are doing their level best to live by the 4 Virtues (Wisdom, Justice, Courage, and Discipline). As you know it’s not always easy and it’s a practice that requires a lot of grit and determination. Excellence and Virtue aren’t for everyone, Stoicism can be hard. I don’t want to leave anyone out, so today’s newsletter is going to give tips and tricks to those who are unwilling or unable to live lives of excellence. ?

One hallmark of the non-excellent person is a noticeable lack of courage. Ethical courage, intellectual courage, and physical courage are often the most evident especially when we see people in leadership positions. I’m not being unkind or talking trash. Cowardice often stems from ignorance of what is truly important in life, you don’t know what you don’t know. Most cowards just have a misalignment of their priorities. We have all been less brave than we should be at times. It is part of being human, and the road to excellence is full of setbacks, and detours.

For you die-hard cowards out there, I’ll give you a tip, a little life hack to help cover up your cowardly nature and fool the world and yourself for a little longer. This tip is a stop-gap, and it won’t work forever, because people always figure it out eventually. ? To really hide your cowardice you need to start talking about and preaching one thing “Consistency”. Don’t be shy about it, make it part of your mission statement. Do your best to convince everyone around you that it is a morally superior virtue that you hold dear. For added effect, you should ruthlessly attack anyone who admits fault, changes their mind, wants to try a new direction, or modifies their opinion. It’s easy, just scream “That’s not consistent!” at the top of your lungs. ?

If you really lean into consistency, you don’t have to challenge old ideas. You don’t have to utter the hard-to-say phrase “I was wrong.” You don't have to make hard decisions, you can point to other people and say, “They set the precedent and I’m just being consistent.” You don’t have to learn or grow. You can be comfortable with your consistency. It’s much easier, you don’t have to evaluate every situation and do what is morally right with all the facts and circumstances considered. You don’t have to take a hard look inside and really evaluate your own motives for doing things, that is difficult and will often lead to uncomfortable truths. ?

If you really do a good job of promoting consistency, you might even fool a bunch of people into thinking that you have discipline and courage. You won’t fool the well-educated, because they know that the?disciplined and courageous person can’t always be consistent. They know that when new facts, new information, and new circumstances arise, the disciplined and courageous person will modify their beliefs, opinions and behavior. It takes courage to step off the well-paved path and fight the trends. It takes discipline to learn and grow, it's a true commitment. As you learn and grow, you will naturally change your mind about things but you don’t have to worry about the ramifications of that as long as you are on team-consistency. ?

Ok, cowards, I have done my part and given you a good life hack. I don’t want to hear you saying that Sgt. Steve never did anything for you. I’ll leave you with a Stoic quote that you should do the opposite of at all times, if you want to be a card-carrying coward:

? “If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.” -Marcus Aurelius